Grateful Deception
by Pineapple's Fidelity
Summary: Will stopped coming home a long time ago. One-shot.


**Title:** Grateful Deception  
**Rating:** G  
**Character/Pairing:** "Will", Sarah, Ironhide, Annabelle  
**Warnings:** None**  
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Annabelle knew her dad stopped coming home a long time ago. She still hasn't told her mother. She's afraid if she does her mom will break and crumble. Still she hates lying. Hates acting cheerful and pretending to like her not-dad. Don't get her wrong, she loves Ironhide very much like the uncle she feels he is and she's grateful for him putting up this charade even though it must really bother him, but she found it hard not to hate the holoform he used.

It wasn't right at all. It was physically right and Ironhide gave it the right tone of voice for different occasions as well as making do the correct motions Will would've but it smelled wrong. It didn't smell like her dad at all from what Annabelle could remember from her younger years. A mixture of sweat, earth, desert (a scent that had, somehow, never been erased even after all the showers following Quatar), some gunpowder, and just plain Will smell. That was hard to place (or just unplaceable, she'd never decided) and just plainly Will. It made everything else fake for her and very hard to play pretend.

But she had. Everyone did so Sarah wouldn't fall apart. Rip open the carefully resown seams and leave Annabelle alone. Though she'd never be alone it would certainly feel that way to her without both her dad and mom.

"Have fun at the park, sweetie."

"I will," promises Annabelle standing up on tip-toe to place a peck on her mother's lips and give her a hug.

Sarah returns the hug then lets her daughter go watching her scramble up inside the black truck, Ironhide, before skirting around to the other side where she leans in the window and shares a quick kiss with will.

"Dinner will be ready when you get back," she informs smiling.

Will grins back, if it were strained Sarah didn't notice, "Great, I'll see you then."

The couple share another kiss before Sarah goes back up into the house. When the door closes behind her Will changes becoming a different man completely. Ironhide did not like to hold his holoform in Will's visage more than necessary.

"So how are you doing in school?" he asks pulling out of the driveway.

Annabelle gives a shrug, "Good. I guess. My math teacher has been a jerk lately though."

A laugh shakes through the Topkick's frame, "That seems to be a popular opinion amongst young humans."

"Well, it's true!"

"Oh?"

"Yeah, you see," she says looking at the dashboard in a conspiratorial way completely ignoring the holoform, it was only there for superficial purposes, "all math teachers have this great, big, master plan to turn us kids into mindless drones so they can take over the world! They're gonna give us so much homework that we won't ever get enough sleep! And then when we're to tired to think properly they'll use they mind control powers to possess us all! You see? The world's doomed!"

Ironhide chuckles, "I should hope not. I have enough trouble with Decepticons that I don't need evil plotting math teachers too!"

Annabelle grins widely. She likes being alone with Ironhide without her mother. She doesn't have to pretend anything.

--

Sarah stares out the window trying to tell herself that wasn't what she saw, Will hadn't just vanished, he'd been there the whole time. Will hadn't vanished. Will wasn't dead. Will did come home. She doesn't believe herself even as she whispers them then repeats them louder and louder until she's shouting. Sarah couldn't find it in herself to believe the words she said anymore and slid to the floor holding herself tightly as she cried.

She had also known when Will had stopped coming home. She'd refused to believe it and had pretended he was still out there, still alive and still in their daily lives. She'd believed in the lie so thoroughly it nearly broke her to pieces when reality came back with a vengeance, refusing to be thrown away. So when the Autobots had offered up their deception she accepted it gratefully willing to ignore the facts. Facts that her mind, or nobody else for the matter, wasn't as willing to just let be. Her body trembled as silent sobs of hurt ran trhough them.

_He's not dead. He's not dead. He's not dead. He's not dead..._

She chanted the words over in her head again, again, and again, eye closed tightly. Somewhere deep down inside her it hurt to do so. Because, deep down, where she wasn't sure she could feel it anymore, she regretted trying to forgetting and didn't want to live in a lie. It wasn't like it mattered, she couldn't feel it.

So she forgot.


End file.
